Transcript of FAAR Louder Episode: 

 

HI everybody today we’re here with

Alicia Angstadt of the Angstadt Real

Estate Group and we’re going to talk about work life

balance how are you today

 

I am fantastic how are you 

 

I’m doing great so

tell me a little bit about yourself and

running your business

 

so I I own a brokerage we’re a small

boutique brokerage in Fredericksburg

and um gosh a little bit about me i

could talk all day

I do  have the brokerage I also have

three children

and a husband I do still work actively

in real estate as well as help

facilitating things along at my

brokerage

so that does keep me very busy along

with the the items and the

everything else that i’ve got to put

together and organize and

the extracurricular stuff for the

children as well so it does keep me

really busy

I also set a couple committees here at

the association of realtors

and assist with two different churches

so that keeps me very busy

 

wow that’s a lot what committees are you

involved with

 

so I uh well this year I’m actually co-chair

I’m usually chair of grievance but I

co-chair grievance

and I am on the nominating committee and

now we are forming a new

um diversity group a multicultural

diversity group

and so we are busy with that

 

wow so you are definitely got a full

schedule

so how do you how do you keep that

schedule straight what are what are some

things that you utilize to help keep up

 

so and and I have this conversation with

new agents all the time I always tell

them to make sure that

their family is on the same page as them

because

luckily for me my husband is in real

estate as well so we totally understand

schedules and

and everything else I have been in real

estate for 20 years

so my children have grown up in it

that’s all they know and they know that

when they see me

grab the phone it’s because I have to

take the phone call

um of course we’re working on client

time and maybe they’re not available

during the day and they’re only

available at night so my children have

grown up with the understanding that

this is what mommy does

as far as um making sure that

I organize things correctly in terms of

time

everything there’s you’re never going to

have and I’m trying to figure out the

best way to say this

you’re there’s never going to be a

complete equal balance of family and

work one is going to always take

precedence depending on

the importance of it at the time there

could be something that

is the contract is going to fall out if

you don’t take care of it and i’ve got

to get up from the table from meeting

and handle it and my children again

understand that my husband understands

that

I try to allow for time

for personal and not touch my cell phone

I also let my clients know I let my

agents know look I’m going to be

unavailable

or out of pocket from this time to this

time so there’s never going to be a

complete balance

I do tell all new agencies and even you

know agents who have been in the

business for a long time that are

struggling with this

make sure that that your direct circle

is on the same page as you

because if they’re not on the same page

as you they’re not going to understand

what we do so make sure they understand

our business

how we take phone calls how we respond

to emails and text messages

and there are a lot of people that have

it a lot more put together than I do

I don’t know how they do it I’ve tried

I’ve tried to sit down and schedule

every hour out and it’s very difficult

especially being in a broker’s position

because you never know when there’s a

fire that you’re going to have to help

put out or there’s an

issue that someone has just you know

I’ve got to have this taken care of like

right now

or my client you know only has this time

to this time to get this worked out so

you

that type of stuff you’re never going to

be able to schedule because you never

know we don’t have a crystal ball we

don’t ever know like what’s going to

happen at the time

so the easiest the easiest way to kind

of keep

things in line is make sure that at

least your core group

is on the same page as you if they

understand that that’s going to help

ease and transition into everything else

that you do in your business

it’s gonna also help if your clients

understand your timing and when you’re

available when you’re not available and

set that

up front with them like just make sure

that that is something that that you

establish up from with them

so you have a lot of things going on so

so you kind of have to prioritize and

obviously that changes but

when it comes down to it how are you how

are you prioritizing your commitments

so the best way to do that is to just

get your calendar out and I’m a very

visual person

like I love the fact that we can do

everything on our cell phones however

I like to have a piece of paper as well

I’m very old school like I like paper

still

I’m probably one of the few that does

but I love a paper file

and I have everything on a database but

I love everything paper

where I can grab it and look at it at a

glance I like my little at a glance

notebook

that has the calendar written out i

write everything down so then I can see

it

one thing that I do is sunday nights is

I write out everything for the week

so everything that I know that I’ve got

to take care of for the week and that’s

not the stuff that pops in on me that’s

everything that I know I’ve got to

accomplish

and then daily so sunday night I write

out the week and then I also write out

what I’m doing monday

and so daily at night right before bed I

write down everything that I’m doing for

the next day that I know I’ve got to

take care of

and then everything else that falls into

place I make sure that I get everything

that I know

I have to take care of that day done and

then everything else I try to get done

as I’m thinking of it I just make lists

I’m a list person love a list

I actually have charts for charts for

charts so just the way that my mind

Works

 

I absolutely understand that I probably

need a spreadsheet to organize my

spreadsheet that’s the same

same as me absolutely so you so you’re

very much about

writing it out keeping everything like

right in front of visual

 

yeah visual if you see it then you know

and then you can check it off

I’m a check list type person and even if

you’re not that type of person

start writing stuff down scratching

through it for me

it’s like this sense of euphoria like

when I scratch something through that

I’ve gotten it done

I feel so good about it just like I’m

like okay that’s good that’s done so I

can look at my list and at the end of

the day everything should be

crossed off or I will actually get it

done I’m a little ocd with certain

things

actually with a lot of things so if I

know that I have something to do I will

not be able to sleep at night the way

that my mind is

so I make sure that I write the list out

I scratch through it and if it’s

something that can be done the next day

I’m fine pushing that to the next day

but for the most part

write it out cross it off when it’s done

it just it gives you that sense of

finalizing out everything absolutely 

 

So what are some things that you find

because obviously you’re like go go go

all the time it seems

but there’s still that personal care

element to it

how do you make sure that you’re still

getting enough time to recuperate

throughout your week

 

um personally for us my husband and i

get up in the morning super early and we

go to the gym

we make sure that we have that time it’s

it’s it’s good for a couple different

different reasons so you have the health

aspect of it but also

it’s the time that he and I are together

by ourselves and we’re kind of talking

about stuff and

just kind of getting the blood flowing

and getting oxygen moving along in your

body

and I think that for us like we

brainstorm when we do that type of stuff

um so we do that every morning it’s

consistency

again everything is so consistent with

what we do

um it’s like we have the same pattern of

what we do every day and so

I think that that helps facilitate

things along for us and it helps also

keep

that personal level to where everything

is not all about work

we have things that are scheduled

specifically for the children so we know

if we have certain things that we have

to do with the children

that’s the time if one of us can’t make

it we both try to make it to everything

for the children but if one of us cannot

then that’s fine the other one is always

there so we have

figured that out in the time that we’ve

been together which we’ve been together

for quite a while but

we have figured out the balance of how

to make sure that

the children are always getting the

attention the business is getting the

attention but again

at some point in time something is going

To take precedence over the other and it

has worked out really well for us

because of the fact that our family

understands what we do and they

understand how our businesses

the children are at the office every day

they get to see like the workflow

um you know I was through through two

different two of my three pregnancies i

was actually

pregnant while working and um that the

babies have grown up in the office

and it’s it’s just something it’s our

it’s our life like it’s just what we do

and we love what we do and

we just I don’t know how we make it work

for ourselves

 

so you amongst all of this you still carve

out time for things like

church and you even make time for things

at FAAR which we really appreciate

um why are those so important why are

those extra maybe people wouldn’t see them as

important why do they stand out to you

 

I feel that regardless of what you do

whether you’re religious or not

if there is something that you do in

your personal life you have to schedule

that the same way that you schedule

an appointment for work a lot of people

schedule everything for work and then

they fit their life in

we like to know what we do on a personal

level and then we fit the work around

That which some people would probably argue

with me on that but we know every you

Know every monday we do this every tuesday we

do this every sunday we do this

saturdays we like to do this so there

are other things that do fall in

sometimes

again with with in the middle of the

personal aspect

but we like to schedule our work

around our life because we are

you know we are who we are and we have

things that we do

that it’s on a regular basis where work

sometimes

is all over the place we know at least

every day what

we do on that day as FAAR as

FAAR a lot of a lot of agents don’t

realize what benefit they get out of

of just participating and coming and

feeling the

feeling you know every every bit of the

energy

and in the atmosphere that’s here at the

association

um I personally like it because every

time I leave FAAR i’ve learned something

new

it’s a conversation in the hallway

although right now it’s

very messed but um it’s you know the

conversation in the hallway of someone

an agent that you haven’t seen maybe

you’ve talked to them

you know six months ago but you haven’t

physically seen them it’s just getting

together and being able to feed off of

each other’s energy and I think it’s

very important for agents to be around

other agents a lot of people’s mindset

is I don’t

really need to hang out with them or be

around them because they’re competitors

Well if you come to the association and you

get a chance to actually be around

other colleagues and and other

people in our industry be it you know a

mortgage company or a title company

just being around them helps keep you

Going um they tell you new things that are

coming they tell you something that’s

happening in their office

is it going on in yours yet or is what’s

coming down the pipe there are things

That keep you connected and I think that FAAR

is what keeps you connected

 

thank you for your time today thank you

I appreciate coming it was fun